


bard, ranger, mage, paladin, cleric, zoomer

by JakeyFryMason011



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bottled-up Emotions, Cutting, Depression, Emo Mike Wheeler, Sad Dustin Henderson, Sad Will Byers, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, all around sadness, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-13 07:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16888578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JakeyFryMason011/pseuds/JakeyFryMason011
Summary: Just some boredom/procrastination-induced character expansions.EDIT: Bonus chapter featuring Steve Harrington





	1. The Bard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dustin Henderson and his deeper side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dustin's first because he's my favorite. Sorry.

He was Dustin Henderson, a vast, infinite bucket of swear words, pointless information, advice, and laughs. He had to be happy for everyone else. So, every day, he pasted a smile on his face and walked out the door, ready to cast sunlight on others and letting their own rainfalls become part of him.

At night, Dustin buried his face in his pillows and screamed bloody murder.

In fourth grade, life had been simpler, even if it didn't seem like it at the time. Nobody liked him so far, and so he decided to go sit in the corner and eat lunch alone. Then, somebody said "Hey! New kid!" and he turned to three boys beaming at him.

"Want to eat lunch with us?" said the tallest one, and that changed not only his day but his entire life as well. And for a while, he was happy.

Then, Will disappeared. Out of nowhere and into nowhere. For the second time in his life, Dustin felt crushing hopelessness and sadness, which he masterfully threw a tarp over and ignored for the benefit of the others. Then, all of them went for a search in the woods, and they met a kid with no hair and a yellow shirt.

Later, they found out the kid was a girl. She also had superpowers.

Lucas stormed away, his back and his pride hurt. Dustin's world was disintegrating fast, now, and he felt that hopelessness again. So he stormed over to Mike's house and shouted at him.

Well, that didn't work.

Shit.

Then Troy had a knife to his mouth and Dustin was screaming not for his teeth, but because Mike was about to die and he couldn't lose another friend.

Then, guns a-blazing, Eleven showed up again, breaking Troy's arm and saving Mike.

Dustin developed a tiny, tiny crush on this mysterious girl with badass abilities, but Mike was smitten with her and she was him, so he kept his distance and eventually he forgot all about it. She was a good friend, sure, but he wasn't willing to destroy her relationship with Mike.

Then, in the school. She killed a crowd of bad men with her mind, and they were running, and then they were huddled in the classroom as the monster stalked closer.

Then, Eleven was dead.

Mike was hit the hardest, and Dustin felt his own sadness double. He had lost a friend, and now he was watching Mike Wheeler, dungeon master, nerd, best friend, die as well, replaced by an angry, violent boy with Mike's skin. He took Mike's pain on as his own. He kept on a brave, happy smile, and then went home and cried with his cat. Nobody understood, and he didn't want then to.

No, it was better to suffer alone.

A new girl skipped into their lives the next year, one who Mike seemed to hate immediately. Dustin didn't know what he was talking about, this girl was perfect.

Just his luck: she hated him.

The small, inconsequential crush he'd had for El was about sixty times smaller than this one. Dustin tried to win her over, desperately. Lucas liked her, but suddenly Dustin no longer cared. And that scared him.

Suddenly, he was with Steve Harrington, and they were hanging out and talking, and Steve gave him some advice: act like you don't care.

So he tried that.

It didn't work.

Then, Lucas grasped Princess Daphne by the waist and carried her away.

He was too late.

Dustin cried that night, curled up in his bed against the oppressive darkness. He looked over at a razor on his shelf, and before he knew it he'd gotten up and placed it to his wrist.

It hurt like hell, but at least he could think of something else.

The Snow Ball. Dustin harbored some small hope of dancing with Max, but that had gone to shit, so he tried other girls.

None accepted, and Dustin decided that Will wasn't the "freak" of their party. He was. He always would be.

It was the first time he had cried in front of other people.

Then, Nancy, who Dustin had thought hated him, showed up.

"Want to dance?"

"What?"

So, they danced. Stacey sneered, but Nancy smiled and assured him that, one day, he'd have more than enough girls to dance with. And they'd laughed together.

Then, Max and Lucas were caught kissing outside.

Dustin broke out the razor again.

He and Steve hung out once, going for ice cream once Dustin finished helping the older boy with his homework, when Steve noticed something on his wrist. "Hey, what's--"

"Nothing," Dustin said, making to jerk his arm away, but Steve caught him and rolled up the sleeve.

"What the hell is this?" Steve demanded, his eyes raking across the thin red lines crisscrossing his arm.

So Dustin spilled the beans. All of them, everywhere. Beans salty with the flavor of his own tears which he'd tried to keep in and had failed on so many occasions.

Two good things came of that day: his friendship with Steve Harrington got stronger, and he stopped using the razor except for shaving.

He still wouldn't be over Max for a while. But Steve told Nancy about some of what Dustin had said, and she'd appeared on his doorstep when he was out with the flu, holding a rented movie. "Can I come in?"

And that was how Dustin Henderson's friend group grew to two 18-year-olds. Which was bizarre, but he didn't mind at all.

He was Dustin Henderson, a vast, infinite bucket of swear words, pointless information, advice, and laughs. He had to be happy for everyone else. Only now, he genuinely could reflect real happiness back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I will say is that it wasn't that hard to find source material.


	2. The Ranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucas just desperately wants to be a hero.

His name is Lucas Sinclair, and he is their Ranger, their fighter, the powerhouse. He puts on a brave face against troglodytes and bullies alike. If he isn't strong, nobody else will be. Lucas Sinclair desperately wants to be a hero, but he knows he'll be a sidekick forever.

When he had started school, everyone had been nice because he was good at playground softball. Then, when he got older, prejudices were taught and he was shunned by everyone. Everyone except two boys named Michael and William, although, curiously, they preferred to be called Mike and Will.

Lucas liked them a lot, and hoped they'd like him too. And, as it turned out, they did! Now, Lucas went from no friends to two best friends. Mike was their leader and Lucas was the sidekick, and he was fine with that. When Dustin arrived in fourth grade, Lucas welcomed him with open arms.

One day, Will Byers left the Wheeler's house and never got home. Lucas vowed to find his best friend and bring him back from...wherever. He had Mike and Dustin to lean on, and nothing would stop them from finding Will.

Then, they met a freaky bald girl in the woods. And the entire plan went to shit.

Lucas hated her, hated the way Mike was too nice, hated that, on top of Will, he was losing another friend: Mike. Mike was slipping away like sand.

He didn't trust this "Eleven", and the fact that she had superpowers didn't help in the slightest. And so Lucas decided that he was going to stop being a sidekick, right then and there, and confronted Mike about what she had done. Surely he would see now, right?

Wrong.

And Lucas hated him for it. So he charged Mike, pushing him, and the two rolled in the grass, shouting and swearing.

Then, the weirdo lifted him from the ground and slammed him into a wall.

Lucas Sinclair was not going to a sidekick anymore. So he went home and started planning on how to save Will, either with Mike's help or not. It was clear to him that he was the only one who cared about finding Will.

So when Mike showed up again, he was pleasantly surprised, but then it changed to anger when that idiot refused to let go of the weirdo. So he went on his own. Being a hero was nice.

Then he watched as the lab mobilized their forces, and forgot all about how he was angry at Mike. Pedaling down the hill and screaming "The bad men are coming!" willing even to save the weirdo, who apparently had come back.

Lucas decided that he was going to be nicer to her from now on, considering she had saved not only his life, but Mike's as well.

And then, he was back to being the sidekick. Being a hero was nice while it lasted.

Then, Eleven was dead. And he lost Mike all over again. Lucas kept his own chin up defiantly, refusing to kneel to crushing sadness until everyone was gone. He allowed himself to curl up and cry at night. For Eleven, for Mike, and for Will, because Lucas would never allow himself to feel sorry for himself.

Will began to get paler and paler, and he went to see Owens more and more often. Lucas was worried, but those worries went out the door when he met a really pretty pale girl with a fiery attitude to match her hair. He vaguely suspected Dustin had a crush, but he didn't really care because she was in trouble with her brother and he wanted to help. Now was his chance to be a hero.

Problem was, Mike hated Max, and Lucas didn't know why. But Max had enough, exploding at him in the parking lot. It's me or them, she seemed to be saying, and Lucas had no idea what he was supposed to do. 

So he decided to corner her in the arcade he told her everything.

"A little more originality," she said with a slight sneer.

He couldn't believe it. She laughed at his attempts before he clapped his hand over her mouth, eyes intense. "You're going to get us killed," he whispered.

Max looked like she wanted to say something, but then her brother showed up. "Don't follow me," she said, squeezing his hand, and ran away.

All day, he thought of nothing but her hand in his.

Dustin risked their lives with his scientific discovery, which, surprise surprise, had grown into a small demogorgon. Wait, Steve Harrington was in this too? And now he and Max were atop the bus, talking softly to one another, and he allowed himself to relax.

They were in the house, waiting for something, anything, when Billy showed up, came crashing inside, and pushed Lucas against the wall, growling.

 _Be a hero,_ his brain told him, so his foot shot out and he kicked Billy in the nuts.

"You are so dead, Sinclair!" Billy shouted, but then Steve punched him in the face.

And then Steve got his ass kicked, and then the girl of his dreams tranquilized Billy.

He was in love, hopelessly and irreversibly. Even more when she took Steve's bat and made her brother promise to never, ever bother her friends again.

So afterward, when they were all back, he asked her nervously if she was going to the Snow Ball. Max, still Max, just smirked at him and said "Maybe," which wasn't helpful at all, but she kissed his cheek uncharacteristically and went to go try and talk to Eleven. 

At the Snow Ball, he stuttered all over himself, nervously trying to see if she'd want to dance. "So smooth," she'd said, rolling her eyes, but there was a smile and she took his hand and led him to the where the others were. They'd been caught later, kissing in front of the doors.

There was another problem: Billy hadn't kept his word.

Of course he hadn't.

Max and Lucas went on a date, holding hands and just enjoying each other, when Billy pulled up to them in his car, sneering, and then drove off.

"Just ignore him," Max said. "He's just...being a dick."

Lucas knew why Billy really didn't like him.

So when Billy, drunk, showed up at the Quarry when he and Max were out for a walk, he'd taken the first swing. Then he grabbed Max by the hand and they ran like hell. The one thing he remembered from them running was the radiant, beaming smile that Max gave him.

His name is Lucas Sinclair, and he is their Ranger, their fighter, the powerhouse. He puts on a brave face against troglodytes and bullies alike. If he isn't strong, nobody else will be. Lucas Sinclair desperately wants to be a hero, and to Max, he is. 


	3. The Mage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El just wants to be a normal, everyday teenage girl.

This is El, or Eleven, or Jane, or 011. She's their mage, she protects her friends with a fierce, undying passion, and could kill you with a look. El just wants to be a normal girl, but that's far out of her reach.

If you didn't know her, you'd think she's a bit odd but nothing alarmingly abnormal about her. Jane Hopper likes heavy metal music and Run-DMC, has a brother named Will, likes to hang out with her friends, sleep, eat Eggos, and spend time with her boyfriend. Jane Hopper spends a lot of time with those nerds, even though she could easily make friends with the popular kids of their little world.

If you do know her the way those nerds do, then you'd know an entirely different story.

Jane Hopper only knew herself as 011 for the first twelve years of her life, living in a small prison of her own. Her world was both simple and complex back then: Papa, bare walls, lukewarm water, tanks, the Void, the isolation room. 011 never knew anything different. This was her normal.

Then, she accidentally unleashed something.

Screaming, the glass of her tank burst, and she tumbled out, slicing herself on the shards, and ran. Looking back, there was a horrible slice on the wall, and something was coming out.

She ran. On the ground level soldiers chased her, and suddenly she was outside. It was bigger than she ever imagined, dark and cold, and she threw herself into a strange...tube, was it called?

It started to rain, strange drops of water she had only ever read about, and she kept running.

011 walked around for ages, until she came out in the bright sunlight into a small building. There was a man there, and his name was Benny.

When she tried to steal a container of food, he caught her, and he grabbed her roughly by the arms and she didn't like him very much, because he reminded her of the men at the lab. But his gaze softened, and he sat her down, gave her a plate of food, and made her eat.

He tried to ask her questions, none of which she understood.

"011," she said. "Me."

Benny looked at her for a full minute, and said "Right. Okay." Then, he went into the next room and called for someone.

Then, a woman walked through the door and shot Benny in the head. 011, eyes wide, ran for her life again, into the deep woods.

It started to rain again, and then she ran, quite literally, into three other small people like herself, except they had more clothes then she did.

They led her to another house, a small building, and she introduced herself again. They stared at her.

011 did not like the boy with the darker skin, who glared at her and shouted and was bad. She tolerated the boy with the curls and the funny thing on his head.

She _really_ liked the boy with the dark hair, Mike.

"How about we call you El? Short for Eleven?" Mike offered.

She liked it a lot, and it stuck. Even Lucas, the mean one, took to calling her that.

So when he came downstairs to try and get her to talk to his version of a Papa, she shook her head. "No." Because all she could think of was Mike with a bullet lodged in his brain.

It turned out that whatever they were looking for had taken a boy named "Will", and when she pointed him out Mike got excited and called his friends over. Lucas got angry and went to warn Mike's mama, but she slammed the door.

Lucas seemed to like her more after that.

They asked her where he was, and she took them there, but in her excitement she forgot about the other place.

"What is wrong with you?" Mike screamed, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes, and El tried to explain, but he left.

He was still angry at her in the basement, so El decided to prove that she was telling the truth. Will was there, next to her, even though he couldn't see her, so she played Mike a song Will was singing.

Mike and his friends dressed her up in a costume, and her favorite boy gave her a look that she wanted to stay in forever. 

"Pretty," she whispered. "Good."

She loved her new look, not because of any particular element, but because of one word:

Normal.

She looked...normal.

El decided she liked her new normal.

They went to something called a "school," full of other small people (were there really that many?) and a nice, taller man named Mr Clarke, and sat and watched another big man talk.

A little ways away, two small people, who Mike clearly didn't like, were laughing as though the entire thing was somehow funny, and El decided she hated them too.

So, when Troy went to hurt Mike, she stopped him and, just for good measure, squeezed his bladder ever so slightly.

Mike gave her a glowing look, and she decided it had been worth it.

Then, she told them about the Upside-Down.

So all of them went to find Will, walking along the train tracks, except El lied. She lied. She felt like a horrible person for lying to her friends.

It was for a good cause. Now they'd be safe.

Lucas didn't think so, shouting at Mike, and before she knew it he was on top of Mike, hurting him, and she wanted him to stop so she threw him.

She hadn't meant to throw him that hard. Evidently, Mike didn't know that, and he screamed "What is wrong with you?" at her. El wanted to tell him everything, but instead she ran.

Not normal.

Hiding in the woods eating stolen boxes of Eggos, she took off her wig and screamed--

"Eleven!"

Mike!

She ran towards his voice, excited, hopeful, but suddenly she heard fear, and when she found him he had jumped off a cliff and those mouthbreathers before were going to hurt Dustin.

Mike was safe, and gave her that same glowing look. She broke Troy's arm and she told him about what she'd done.

"I'm the monster," she said.

"You saved me," he told her, and they hugged. Even Dustin joined in with the hug.

Back in the basement, Mike got very close to her face, and for some reason El wanted him to get closer until they touched. But Lucas was in trouble, and Papa was coming to get her, and she and Mike and Dustin and Lucas went on their bikes to try and get away.

El threw a bad man in the air, stopping Papa and his friends from hurting Mike, and they went to the place where El had accidentally hurt Lucas.

"I'm sorry," Lucas said, and she was happy because he was her friend now.

They were hiding when a big man with a harsh voice came by to help them, and El told them she could find Will in the bath. Nobody quite understood it yet, but eventually they realized what she meant and they went back to the school, now quiet.

First she tried to find someone named Barb, and she cried because Nancy's friend was gone forever. With Will, she had better luck, and she gently told him help was coming. But something happened, and her connection was lost.

Then, she and Mike were in the cafeteria, and he did something where he put his mouth on her mouth. She had seen two scientists at the lab do it once, and she loved it. When he pulled away, she wanted him to do it again, but the bad men were here.

So was the monster.

It was coming closer and closer, and she knew it would kill all of them, and so she vaporized it and left Mike behind.

Then, it was dark and cold. The monster was dead, but Eleven was not, and she was trapped inside the Upside-Down.

Or was she?

There was a hole in the wall, and she found she could climb through. She was back out again.

She went to Mike's house to find him, but he was being held by the bad men, and it wasn't safe for her to return. She ran away, tears pricking her eyes.

El spent months wandering around the woods, killing animals, when the big man from before, Hopper, arrived. And he took her to a house.

But El wanted Mike. "Soon," Hopper kept telling her, and one day she'd had enough and went to see Mike.

He was with another girl.

She went home, wanting to cry. Mike had forgotten her. He had forgotten all about her. Maybe his calls weren't even him.

Hopper was very, very angry, and he took away the television and she was left with nothing, no way to find Mike again. She screamed, blowing out the windows, and sobbed herself to sleep.

He left the next day, and she learned about Mama.

Hopper had lied. Again.

She ran away to find her, but Aunt Becky accidentally called authorities and El ran away again to find Kali.

El was tired of running away.

But she had found her sister, and learned to use her anger and her past pain and harness it, manipulate it. She and Kali went to hurt a bad man who had hurt Mama. El was content, but not happy with what she had done. He had children, and Kali wanted to hurt them too.

Back at their home, she looked and Mike was in danger, and she had to help him. She left Kali and her friends and went to save her own friends.

She found something horrible lurking outside of where Mike was: the monster, but small, and she snapped its neck and tossed it through the window.

Then, there was Mike.

She'd never felt so happy, and hugged him tightly.

"I never gave up on you," he said, beaming through watery eye. "I called you for--"

"Three hundred and fifty three days," she said breathlessly. "I heard."

Hopper hugged her gruffly, and she felt Mike growing angry. Hopper dragged him away to talk, and she reunited with the others.

Oh. It was _her._ It might have been rude, but she brushed past the red-haired girl, Max.

It was time to leave, now, but El didn't want to leave Mike.

"You won't lose me," she promised him, and their lips were tantalizingly close before Hopper took her with him to the lab to close the gate.

Hopper pretended to be angry, but she could see the relief seeping through his facade, and before they went in he gave her a brief, quick hug.

They lowered themselves down to the gate, and El shivered. Behind there was the Shadow, a horrible thing that whispered to her, beckoning, urging her to kill everyone, Hopper, Mike.

 _No,_ she told it firmly. _No._

It reached for her, and she screamed, reaching out with the other hand and pushing it away. _You will not take my friends today,_ she screamed at it, and with a squishing, straining sound it was closed.

El collapsed.

When she woke up, it was morning, and she worried it had all been a dream, and Mike really wasn't there--

\--but something shifted next to her, and she turned and there he was, spread eagle, with his arm on her stomach.

She couldn't help herself. She poked his nose, smiling at how it wrinkled before he opened his eyes.

"El?" he asked blearily.

"Hi, Mike," El said, beaming. Mike smiled back at her.

"I missed you."

"I missed you too," she hummed, and wriggled into his arms more.

They kissed again that day, the first time after too long.

Mike came to visit her every day for the next year, after a nice doctor (apparently those things existed) faked a birth cer-ti-fi-cate and gave her a new name of "Jane Hopper."

"Don't," she said when Mike called her that one day.

"Don't what?"

"Call me Jane. I like...I like El. When you say it."

Mike had blushed and smiled shyly at him, and she squeezed his hand.

Her Mike.

"Hey, um, El?"

The mentioned girl looked up at the sound of her name, and her vision was met by Max, who looked nervous. "What?" she asked.

"Uh, can I sit?" Max said. El hesitated, and then nodded. Max smiled anxiously and sat. "Hey, uh, I wanted to talk to you," she said.

Eleven blinked at her, but said nothing. "About...what you saw in the gym," Max elaborated. She cocked her head, and Max shrugged. "Mike told me what you saw."

"Oh," was all she said.

"I just...I wanted to make it clear that I don't like Mike. And he doesn't like me."

El knew. She had seen the way she and Lucas looked at each other. "Okay," she said. "I know."

Max grinned, a lot of the tension draining from her face. "So...we're good?"

Eleven nodded, turning back to study her eggos and wait for them to come out.

"Friends?" Max asked tentatively, putting out her hand.

This time, El shook it. And for the first time, she smiled at the other girl. "Friends."

Thus began her friendship with Max Mayfield. El liked Max a lot, because Max taught her how to skateboard and told her all the dumb things the boys had done in her absence.

Normal things girls did, at least in El's world.

She became friends with Will, who was still shy and quiet and nervous, over their love of music.

Normal things people bond over.

"What is...that?" she asked him once, pointing at the radio.

Will jumped, then grinned nervously at her. "This? This, uh, is called rap music," he explained.

El nodded, sitting down in front of it. Will moved some of his pencils out of the way. "It's nice," she said.

Will grinned at her. "You think?"

"Yeah."

El and Will became music partners: he'd give her tapes or records (AC/DC, Kurtis Blow, The Clash, Pink Floyd, Joy Division, Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash, The Who, Guns'N'Roses) and she'd listen to them and tell him what she thought. Her favorites were metal and rap, but she liked Pink Floyd a lot. 

That was how she became friends with Will.

That winter, when Mike came over, they were sitting on her bed and holding hands as they did, and El allowed herself to relax and burrow herself into this comfortable, warm feeling.

The two of them, just for the moment, were normal. Other dimensions and horrible monsters and powers were forgotten, if just for a moment.

"El?"

"Yes?"

"Remember our promise?"

El nodded against his chest.

"I was thinking--I mean, it's stupid--" She heard his heartbeat speed up, and pulled away to look at him. Mike, his cheeks red, squeezed her hand and said "I was wondering if, um, you'd want to go to the Snow Ball with me?"

She just looked at him, and he quickly amended "Not like you have to! I just think that, you know, it'd be nice, but if you don't want to then obviously--"

"Mike," she said. "Yes. I'll go."

He stopped. "Really?"

"Yes," she said, and leaned forward and kissed him.

On the day of the Snow Ball, El couldn't stop bouncing up and down in the seat next to Hopper.

"Relax, kid," Hopper told her, ruffling her hair, and she swatted his hand away. He laughed, and she laughed with him, and for a moment they were just a father and daughter.

Normal.

All her fears evaporated when she walked into the gym and the first thing Mike told her was "Y-you look beautiful." He gave her that familiar glowing look.

"Want to dance?"

"I don't know how."

"Me neither. Do you want to figure it out?"

They kissed again, longer and more passionate, and El felt herself melting.

"El, what's the matter?"

"I'm not...I'm not normal," El said, wiping her eyes. She had been put in school now, but despite the fact that she got along well with most people, clearly this was bothering her.

"What do you mean? None of us are normal," Max said, furrowing her brow.

"You know what I mean," El said, sniffling. "Stacey...Stacey said I was a freak."

"El, hon, Stacey's just a bitch--"

"What if she's right?" El wailed. "What if Mike decides that I'm not normal and he--and he--"

Max took her hand, lacing their fingers together. "El, hey," she said. "That's never going to happen. Relax, okay? Deep breaths. I mean, have you seen the way Mike looks at you?"

El gave her a watery smile.

The AV club door opened and Dustin walked in. "Hey, guys--what's the matter?"

"El's worried she's not normal," Max told him. Dustin screwed up his face in a way that made El smile. "Ew," he said. "Why would you want to be normal?"

"Normal's boring anyway," Lucas said, the next one inside.

"See?" Max said. "Even these idiots say it's okay not to be normal."

But she still didn't feel okay.

"Mike?" El asked him when they were walking.

"Hmm?"

"Are we...are we normal?"

Mike scrutinized her, his brow furrowed. "As close as we can be," he said. "Why?"

"I just...I don't know, it's stupid. Just...what if?"

"What if what?"

"What if Brenner comes back, and he hurts you to get to me? What if one day you leave because I'm too much, Mike?"

"That's never going to happen," Mike insisted, shaking his head. "El, look at me."

She met his gaze and he kissed her sweetly. "That's not going to happen, okay? Trust me. I'll never leave you, ever."

"Promise?"

He laughed. "Yes, El. Promise."

That was the day El decided that maybe normal wasn't as good as she thought it was.

This is El, or Eleven, or Jane, or 011. She's their mage, she protects her friends with a fierce, undying passion, and could kill you with a look. El wanted to be a normal girl, but that's far out of her reach. 

And now, she's okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten points to Ravenclaw if you caught the part I stole from my Mileven Week story.


	4. The Paladin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike won't ever show weakness.

His name is Michael, although all his friends call him Mike. Mike is the Paladin, fearless leader, the one you can depend on to lift his chin, glare adversity in the eye and refuse to back away if his friend's lives are at stake. Mike refuses to show weakness in front of his friends, at a great cost to himself.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Mike Wheeler's life was simple. He had a mother, a father, two annoying sisters, and friends. Nothing that ever happened was out of the ordinary, and he liked it that way. The number "eleven" held no meaning to him except the number above ten and under twelve. Minus bullies at school and his deadbeat father, Mike was happy.

Then, Will rolled seven and never got home.

Mike's orderly universe cracked.

Then, they went out for a walk to find him and instead ran right into a shivering, terrified bald girl in a yellow shirt.

"What is it?" Lucas whispered. It was a girl, Mike saw, even though it took him a minute to figure that out. Despite Lucas's protests, he took her home and gave her a place to sleep.

She had a tattoo and said her name was a number, which was sort of weird, but Mike thought it was cool.

"How about we call you El? Short for Eleven?" She nodded wordlessly.

Mike thought she was awesome. Lucas didn't agree, but he'd come around, right?

El had people coming after her, and she very clearly told him that they would kill him if they found her, so he hid her for longer.

Lucas was pissed.

Then, they found out El had superpowers, and Mike felt his heart swoop. This girl was way too cool for his own good.

Turns out, that was truer than he wanted it to be.

She led them off to find Will, but instead they only found a body, Will.

Dead.

Mike's already crumbling, normal universe shattered entirely.

This couldn't be happening.

_"What is wrong with you?"_

He left her there, and she reappeared a few hours later. Neither spoke to the other.

Then, he heard Will singing somewhere.

Lucas wasn't convinced, but he agreed to get El to a larger radio, and they dressed her up in a wig and a dress.

"Wow," Dustin said. "She looks--"

"Pretty," Mike said without thinking. And no matter how he tried to amend what he had said, she really did look pretty. Almost...normal.

So, after stumbling through a lie with Mr Clarke, they went to sit through the assembly.

Troy and James sat to their right, snickering. "'Boo hoo, a hole in the community,'" they said, and Mike felt his blood boil, and so he ran up to Troy and pushed him as hard as he could.

"You're dead, Wheeler, dead--!"

Troy was stuck. And then--

"Dude, Troy peed himself!"

Mike blinked in surprise, and turned to face El, who wiped her nose innocently and gave him that smile he loved so much.

Will screamed to someone through the speaker, "it's like home!" and an exhausted El was dragged out of the school and laid to sleep on the couch.

"Upside-down," she said. Mike shivered.

They went to a funeral for the body they now knew was fake, and Mr Clarke told them about the flea and the acrobat.

They went back on the tracks to try and find the gate, but El led them to a dead end.

"That's old blood! Right, El?"

She wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Right, El?"

"Not safe," she whimpered.

Lucas, blind with rage and sadness and just hopelessness, threw himself at Mike.

Then, El threw him.

_"What is wrong with you?"_

Lucas was gone, and so was El.

"On one condition: forget the weirdo."

"What? No, forget it, the deal's off!" Mike refused to let go. She was going to help them find Will, he knew it.

Lucas glared and stomped away.

"Eleven!" Mike screamed into the trees, but instead he found James and Troy. Troy pulled a knife and made Mike jump off the cliff, but before he hit the bottom he felt something grab him, and he floated up, away, landing on the dirt.

It was El.

Troy's arm was broken and he and James ran howling into the forest, and she was lying on the ground now. "Mike, I'm sorry. The gate. I opened it. I'm the monster."

"No, El," he said. "You're not the monster. You saved me."

She looked beautiful, right then and there.

"Still pretty?" she asked him.

"Yeah! Really pretty," he assured her, and he meant it.

Dustin burst into the room at the wrong time, except maybe it was the right time, because Lucas was in trouble.

El flipped a van with her mind. _With her mind._ Holy shit. HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

The bad men showed up at the junkyard, guns out, when the Chief of Police of all people showed up.

"I can find Will in the bath," El told them, and Mike had no idea what she was talking about until Dustin blinked and started writing things down.

She found Will.

He was safe.

Thank god.

Mike's universe started to rebuild itself, except now the shards were rearranged into something darker, more turbulent, better.

He liked it more, he decided, especially when he got to kiss El.

And, of course, life was a bitch.

Mike fell apart entirely. His universe, almost rebuilt, fell with rumbling crash and screaming flame. Three hundred and fifty-three days that felt like three million and fifty three thousand days to wait for her to come back. Was she even alive?

Sometimes he felt like she was still out there, but it was stupid. He was stupid. He was so, so  _stupid._

Once, Mike went to the Quarry and thought about jumping off. He knew El wouldn't catch him this time, and he didn't care. If she was dead, he wanted to be dead too. 

His friends pitied him, and he pushed the pity away and kicked it in the ribs. He didn't need pity. He needed El back.

Wait, who the fuck is this girl?

With her red hair and skateboard, who did she think she was, waltzing in and charming Lucas and Dustin? They were trying to replace El, he just knew it.

Mike wouldn't let that happen.

Something pulled her skateboard out from under her. Mike was hopeful, desperate, but there was nothing there.

He screamed into his pillows again.

"It's day 348, El. I thought I saw you today, but I guess I was mistaken."

But Mike wasn't going to show his friends his weakness, his sadness, instead throwing himself into everything he did.

He spent time with Will, who suddenly seemed to be deteriorating right in front of his eyes.

Will was sent to the lab, but it was a trap. Everyone was dead.

They went home.

Mike pleaded for Will to come back, and for one minute he wasn't talking to Will. In front of him was a superpowered girl with a pink dress and a blue coat, nose bleeding.

The door opened.

Was it really her?

Oh my god.

It was her. It was El, his universe, his everything.

"I never gave up on you," he said.

Hopper.

Damn you, Hopper.

You fucking piece of shit.

You're a fucking LOUSYFATPIECEOFSHITHOWDAREYOU

"I can't lose you again," he told her.

"You won't," she promised, and he could practically feel her mouth on his before Hopper chose that moment to take El away to a mission unknown.

Mike had to help. Somehow he was left with Steve Fucking Harrington, which was gross.

The next fifteen minutes rushed by: they came up with a plan to burn the Upside-Down, and then Billy was there and beating the shit out of Steve, and then Max sedated her brother and threatened to crush his dick (maybe she wasn't so bad) and then they loaded Steve into the car and drove away to kill the monsters.

Life was going by too quickly for Mike Wheeler.

They set fire to the vines, and the demodogs ran right past them, and the only thing Mike could think was _elevenohmygodwhatiftheydontgetoutelevenbesafewhatif_

She was back, stumbling, and he lay next to her as she passed out on the couch. He was exhausted.

When she woke up, they kissed for the first time in a long time.

"Hey," Mike said to Max.

"What, Wheeler?" she demanded.

"I just wanted to say that...I was a jerk. And I'm sorry about it."

She gave him a look, and shrugged. "Okay. Thanks."

"Are we cool now?"

Max squinted. "Let me think about it."

Mike just stared at her, and she burst out laughing. "Oh my god, I totally got you."

"Don't make me regret this, Mayfield," Mike huffed, but suffered himself to smile.

About a week later, Mike decided that he was going to ask Eleven to the Snow Ball.

All right. Jesus Christ.

All right. Okay. I can do this.

Deep breath.

"Hey, El?"

"Hmm?"

"...never mind."

"What, Mike?"

"It's nothing."

"Miiike."

"Ellll."

Maybe I'll try tomorrow. (Shit.)

Not so long ago, in a galaxy much closer, Mike Wheeler managed to nervously ask Eleven if she wanted to go with him to the Snow Ball, and she accepted. (Honestly, did he think she'd say no?)

"You look beautiful," he told her, and she did. She really did.

"Want to dance?"

"I don't know how."

"Me neither. Want to figure it out?"

A nod. 

They kissed again, longer than usual, and Mike felt her droop into his embrace and smiled against her mouth. 

"I missed you," he whispered, not for the first time.

"I missed you too," she whispered, not for the first time. 

El laid her head on his chest.

His name is Michael, although all his friends call him Mike. Mike is the Paladin, fearless leader, the one you can depend on to lift his chin, glare adversity in the eye and refuse to back away if his friend's lives are at stake. Mike refuses to show weakness in front of his friends, and he managed to pull through and save the day. 


	5. The Cleric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's life just sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so before we begin: the brilliant OTTSTF also is doing a Will-centric story. Here's word from me, letting you know that if he puts anything in his own story (which is off to a good start btw) that resembles anything in here, he didn't copy me. So...yeah. Felt like I ought to clear that up.  
> Carry on!

Meet Will Byers, their cleric and their heart. Will is their source of quiet reason and sensitivity that the others sometimes lack, their quiet artist and conscience. And yet, despite all the good he's tried and the kindness he's given, life pushes him down and kicks him in the ribs.

Will likes conformity. Sure, he likes difference, but he's always found peace in sameness and neatness, which is why his desk was always arranged in a certain way and his fort was built to very specific measurements (or close enough for an elementary school kid, anyway). He settled nicely into his own pattern of life: get A's in school, avoid Troy and James when he could, hang out with his friends, avoid other boys as well as girls at all costs. Will likes normalcy.

If only he was so normal himself. Granted, he's more normal than El, but still. Will's been to another dimension, he's a misfit in school, he came back from the dead, and, a secret he's never told anyone, he's bisexual.

He hates the last part about himself, because Will knows that if he told anyone, he'd never have a social life again. _Why can't people just accept differences?_ he asks himself, but the answer is always far too obvious.

For the longest time, Will had a huge crush on Mike.

Huge, and unnoticed.

So yeah, life was pretty shitty for Will. The fact that he had an asshole father didn't help at all. At least he had Jonathan to stand by his side.

Sometimes, the confusion of liking both girls and boys made him want to scream.

On the way home from Mike's house, something large loomed above him, and he took off running. He sat with a loaded gun, watching as the shadow grew ever larger and darker outside the door.

The lightbulb flared angrily, increasing in brightness, impossibly, before it went out entirely.

Will suddenly felt cold.

He was still in the shed, holding the gun, and the shadow had left.

But Will wasn't home.

It was dark, almost blue-black, and covered in some sort of slimy...vine thing. Particles of something floated in the air, and it burned his throat to breathe.

And it was cold as hell.

He stepped out. It looked so much like home, but...not.

Above him in the stormy sky, lightning stretched white tendrils across the sky.

He heard a noise, the familiar guttural squawk of whatever was coming, and Will hid under the porch to what might have been his house.

That was the first day.

He soon found that he didn't need to eat, somehow.

The gun ran out of bullets on the third day, when he hid in a tree and shot the Monster until it left. Now, he knew what it looked like: tall and grey, horribly asymmetrical, and a face that opened up like a flower.

Will hid in the basement to Mike's house, so familiar and yet so alien, and rocked in a corner, singing to himself to pass the time.

 _If I go there will be trouble, a_ _nd if I stay there will be double._

Then, he Felt.

There was something sitting next to him, in a blanket fort he didn't remember, and he could feel their presence next to him, but when he turned there was nobody there at all.

Will shivered. 

He moved around a lot, waiting wherever the monster was not.

At some point, he had been shivering under his bed, crying to himself, when he thought he heard a voice coming from the living room, and he rushed towards the sound.

There was nothing, and he felt crushing disappointment weigh in on his mind. He was alone. He knew it.

Something flickered. Not the electricity (there wasn't any), but something in the wall.

He slammed his palm against it, to the pounding music he could hear echoing from nowhere.

_...so you gotta let me know..._

Something happened. Light! From...he didn't know where, but suddenly the layers were ripped away and he saw his mother. There! She was alive. She was there.

"Mom!" he screamed, pounding on the wall. "Mom!"

Their hands could have touched, so tantalizingly close.

He tried to tell her about where he was.

She didn't get it.

The monster was coming again, just outside the door, and he ran out the back door again, diving into a dead bush and huddling until the shadow went away.

When he woke up again, there was a weird set up of lights and letters across the wall. Communication!

_"Where are you?"_

RIGHTHERE

She didn't get it.

RUN

It was at the street, the yard, it was on the doorstep, there through the wall!

6 days. 

That was how long he'd been there.

6 days.

He was caught. Shivering in his fort, he'd woken from whispered words in his head from an unfamiliar voice he was sure he hadn't made up, and had been snatched up and carried away to a horrible place where he was surrounded by the bodies of those less fortunate than he. Exhausted, sickened, he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he woke up, he couldn't figure out where he was. It was bright, clean, the air didn't burn in his throat. Turning his head, his brother's relieved face grinned nervously at him.

"Hey, bud," Jonathan said.

Will couldn't help it. He burst into tears.

Christmas Eve, the scene was familiar again: Will and the others in the basement, shouting and cheering, and finally the monster was dead--both the game and the living one.

Or so he thought.

He kept having episodes, and they kept happening at a more frequent rate. At first he thought they were flashbacks, but they got worse and he knew, he knew he was back in hell.

Will wasn't the same, but neither were the others. Dustin and Lucas seemed to have a stronger bond now, and Mike...just wasn't Mike. New Mike was angry all the time, saddened, miserable. Mike told Will all about a girl with shaved hair who had superpowers and the softest eyes anyone ever saw.

"She sounds nice," Will said.

"Yeah. She--she was pretty awesome."

It didn't help that the kids in school were terrible. Troy and James avoided the Party now (which Mike explained as something to do with Eleven, although he wouldn't say what), but the others...not so much. Not a day went by where Will wasn't tripped, or punched, or had food thrown at him.

So yeah, life was pretty shitty for Will. The fact that he had a bully problem didn't help at all. At least he had his friends to stand by his side.

And, apparently, a girl?

Yeah, apparently now a girl is actually being nice to him. Not Max, who kept looking at him funny, but the most unlikely suspect: Jennifer Hayes.

Weird.

Well, all right, maybe not totally unlikely. She did cry at his funeral, right?

Right. Like that meant anything at all.

So, on top of being all-around awful, life was now confusing too! Yay! Fuck you too, universe!

Jesus.

Will tended to avoid girls, so when Hayes smiled at him and helped him pick up the books someone had pushed out of his hands, he had no idea how to react.

"Here," she said, handing a textbook to him.

"Th-thanks," Will said, trying to ignore the fact that their fingers brushed.

Remember that crush Will had on Mike?

Will doesn't. He forgot the day he had forgotten lunch and money and Jen had fished a few bills out of her bag and handed it to him. When he asked to pay her back she rolled her eyes and said "Just keep it, Byers. Can't a girl do something nice for a boy?"

She lived in an entirely different world than he did (a rather ironic thing to say). Jennifer Hayes was popular, pretty, happy, normal and with enough money from her father that she could afford to just hand it off. Will was a loser, miserable, back from the dead, the only one in his school who had been to another universe, and his mother was barely making funds for them to eat.

Will had no clue what she saw in him.

The bullying got worse, along with the episodes, and his self-confidence started to plummet. There wasn't a day where he didn't look in the mirror and think "What a waste of human sperm."

Then, he saw the Mind Flayer and the Mind Flayer saw him. And he tried, he really tried to fight back, but it forced itself into his mind and Will Byers was pushed into the background, forced to watch as Not Will did terrible things.

He managed to get out. Once. It was too late.

All he could think about was his friends dead, and Jen, and even James and Troy and everyone who made his life hell, all dead. Nobody deserved that.

Certainly not Bob.

It hadn't been his fault, they told him.

Yes, it was, he whispered back.

Will started to wish he could go and see Bob.

In other words: Will wished he was dead. Dead, dead, dead as Bob and Barb.

Dead.

Maybe then they could fill up his grave with something real, so it wouldn't be such a waste.

Will wanted to die, and he didn't even feel like himself anymore.

Old Will suffered from an abusive father and unrequited love, but new Will suffered from PTSD and weighing, pressing guilt.

Will.

Responsible for the death of Bob.

Will.

Almost tore his friends apart.

Will.

Would never be good enough for anyone.

Will.

Thought that a bullet in his skull would give him release.

Will.

"Will?"

He looked up from his current occupation of looking miserably at his food. Jennifer smiled concernedly at him. "Hey, is everything okay?"

No. "Fine."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Will."

It's everything. "It's nothing."

"Look, I just...I want to make sure you're all right. You haven't been talking to me at all and I thought I'd done something wrong."

Will shrugged. "Just...I haven't really been...feeling all that great recently is all. It's fine. I doubt you'd get it."

She shrugged, sitting down next to him and touching his arm. "I'd like to try," she told him.

Christ, how was she so nice?

He didn't deserve her.

So, one day, months later, he sat her down with Hopper and Mike and he told her all about what happened. He expected her to scream, run away, call for help, but instead she just hugged him tightly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, Will."

"It's fine," he said.

Was it?

Well, not yet. But...

...it was close.

Meet Will Byers, their cleric and their heart. Will is their source of quiet reason and sensitivity that the others sometimes lack, their quiet artist and conscience. And yet, despite all the good he's tried and the kindness he's given, life pushes him down. But when it goes for the kick in the ribs, Will's ready. He's gonna grab life by the fucking foot and then, with the help of his friends, they're gonna flip life on its back.


	6. The Zoomer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max just wants to have a family.

Meet Max Mayfield. She's the zoomer of their party. Oh, that doesn't exist? Max doesn't care. She's their willpower, their strength, willing to get physical if push comes to shove comes to threaten-stepbrother's-nuts-with-a-bat.

And what Max really wants is a family. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there was a princess who had a loving mother and father. The sun didn't shine if Princess Maxine wasn't there to witness it in the morning. At her summoning was her loving father who would do anything for his little girl.

Then, the princess grew up.

And she saw that all was not well in the kingdom, because Mommy and Daddy didn't love each other anymore and there wasn't a day that went by without a fight.

And then, one day, Daddy left.

Just left.

And she had a new father, a horrible, slimy man with an equally slimy son named Billy. It was clear he wasn't too pleased with having a new sister, and Maxine wasn't too pleased with having a new brother.

Princess Maxine threw her crown in the mud and left it lying there.

The person who woke up the next morning wasn't a princess, she was the knight. She was going to be strong. Her name was Max, and she rode on her trusty skateboard to the rescue of those weaker than her.

Turns out that girls didn't like that about her.

Well, they could go fuck themselves, to be honest.

Boys were a lot simpler. And nicer, actually.

And then, of course, they had to move.

As if her father, her real father, the one who loved her, was the problem.

Ha.

If it was funny, she could have laughed.

Billy was just so angry now, ripped away from his familiar surroundings. And as much as she hated him, Max found herself understanding. The familiarity of California was the only thing that kept him sane, and now that was gone.

Now, they had to live in this shit little town with shit little people who whispered and pointed.

She just wanted to be left alone. How hard was that? Actually very hard, because she was being followed by these four boys and she wanted nothing to do with them.

The dark one though, he was kind of cute.

Not like it mattered.

Because it didn't.

Not at all.

Nope.

Ahem.

But she did get to jumpscare him. Which was funny. He screamed like a little girl, which made her stomach swoop.

Now she had friends. Right?

Wrong.

Mike didn't want her in the party.

Mike didn't want her, period.

For some unknown reason, he hated her, and she didn't know why.

"El was our mage," he said, sadness escaping his walled-off exterior.

"El? Who's El?"

"No one. Someone."

But that wasn't important, because Dustin had released some sort of slug creature thing which was, admittedly, sort of cool.

"You guys act like you want me to be your friend, and then you just treat me like garbage!"

"That's not true!"

"Yes it is! I thought you guys wanted me to be in your party."

But Lucas couldn't tell her the truth.

She was done. They didn't want to be her friend? Fine. Who cares?

Lucas.

Okay, Lucas is on drugs. Or something. Some girl with magic abilities and a monster from another universe? How stupid did he think she was?

But he shut her up.

One look.

Just one look, with his hand clasped nervously over her mouth. She looked him in the eyes and saw that they were dead serious.

That was what scared her.

"I have proof," he told her.

So she climbed on the back of his bike, noticing just how very close they were, and he set off.

She's at the junkyard, and Lucas and Dustin have vanished somewhere and some guy named Steve with probably the stupidest hair she's ever seen is helping her barricade a bus. Why? Well, why not is really the question at this point.

What's with Dustin?

Something is eating him, apparently, because he's just so uncharacteristically rude and he reminds her too much of Billy, so she goes up to sit with Lucas.

And, for the first time, she opens up to someone about her life, about everything.

Max feels like she can talk to him about anything.

And he really does look hot, with the face paint and the bandanna and the determined glint in his eyes.

She wants to kiss him.

Badly.

Then, suddenly, she learns that he was telling the truth. There really are monsters. Steve, the idiot, goes out to fight them, and suddenly they're just...gone.

They just left.

What the hell was that?

Lucas and Max are holding hands, and as much as she likes the feeling of his own shaking hands steadying hers, she has to let go.

Max squeezes his hand anyway, just to let him know.

They've regrouped at Will's house now, and they're all gonna die and she doesn't even know half these people (she knows Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Steve, clearly, but now there are two more people about Steve's age and a large man with a beard who she knows to be the Chief of Police.

Man, her week has been weird as hell.

Then, it's a girl she learns is El.

She's never seen Mike so happy. The scowl on his face that always seemed to be there is gone, and they hug. It's gross, but at the same time it's sort of heartwarming.

And of course El hates her. Figures.

Mike still doesn't like her, evidently, but it seems like he's more accepting. "Why would you want a stupid Zoomer anyway?" she says, but instead of biting back and looks at his shoes and says nothing.

And then Billy's there.

Figures he would be.

He's got Lucas, and she screams, but then Steve and Billy were tossing around in the ground and oh my GOD Billy was going to kill Steve.

Billy was going to kill Steve.

Billy.

Was going.

To kill.

Steve.

She had to do something.

A sedative! Yes, the sedative!

"Say you understand!" she screams, threatening the only thing he loves: his dick, and he mumbles that he understands and then he passes out.

Okay, Max doesn't really know how to drive.

Well, she did. Once. In a parking lot.

"Everyone SHUT UP!"

Yep. That seems to have worked.

They almost died in wherever that place was, but Max thinks that, even though these are probably the craziest people she's ever met, she loves them as something she hasn't known for a long time.

It's over, and they arrive back at the Byers and collapse.

"Hey," Lucas says, sitting next to her.

"Hey, Stalker," she said, smiling at him.

"Um..." Why did he look so nervous? "Hey, I was wondering...are you gonna, um, you know..."

"Yes?" she pries, grinning.

"Go to the Snow Ball?"

Yes, the Snow Ball. Would she? She hadn't thought about it.

"Maybe," she told him, smirking, and then she couldn't help herself. She kissed his cheek, enjoying the way he grinned goofily and ducked his head.

When Eleven woke up, Max sat and talked to her, and despite awkwardness, Max was happy because they were friends now. And El was really, really cool. She decided to take El under her wing to teach her how to be normal, so every so often she'd go to the cabin and she would teach the other girl how to skateboard and what music was good. 

Then, it was the Snow Ball, and Lucas looked so fucking adorable that she couldn't help but kiss him. And then kiss him again, outside. Even if the others ruined the moment by gagging, she still melted into it.

Billy was back again, but it was a trivial problem, at least until he got drunk and showed up at the Quarry, shouting at them.

Lucas punched Billy square in the face,

That was it, the moment. She knew right then that she was in love with the boy running next to her with his hand wrapped in hers.

For the moment, she let herself relax from position of knight. Right now, she was the princess, being carried away in the arms of a noble knight.

Normally, she'd have hated it.

Now, she kissed Lucas again.

Meet Max Mayfield. She's the zoomer of their party. Oh, that doesn't exist? Max doesn't care. She's their willpower, their strength, willing to get physical if push comes to shove comes to threaten-stepbrother's-nuts-with-a-bat.

And what Max really wants is a family. Is that too much to ask?

Nope. Now she has one, in the form of a loud curly-haired bot with a cap, a small, timid boy with a bowl cut, an impossibly tall boy with dark hair and freckles, a kick-ass girl with powers beyond comprehension, a high school senior with a mullet and a fondness for baseball bats--

\--and Lucas, her Stalker.

All in all, not a bad family to have, wouldn't you say?


	7. The Parent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Chapter!  
> Steve just wants love.

Meet Steve Harrington, the best-looking boy in Hawkins with dreams of a life bigger than this.

Steve's desires are simple: he wants to go out with Nancy Wheeler, he wants to be the best in everything, he wants to make his parents proud. And he wants love.

You see, Steve Harrington's life used to be perfect. He had everything: the popularity, the girl, the happiness.

Well, almost happiness. One problem continued to torment him, always, everlasting, omnipotent.

His parents weren't proud.

It didn't matter what he did. He could be valedictorian and it would be "Well, why weren't you valedictorian last year?" He could win the fucking Olympics and they'd only say "You only won by a few points."

Yeah, thanks so much, Mom and Dad.

So he threw himself into everything else. He had parties, he kissed Nancy, he made himself be happy and just an asshole to cover up his own raging insecurity.

He goes over to help Nancy study, and he knows what she thinks of him, listing off all the girls he's been with. And, inside, something stings, because he knows he's not perfect for her.

Doesn't mean he won't try.

She just wants to study, and he smiles. She looks radiant somehow, reciting her science facts, and he knows he can wait. They could be ninety years old before they sleep together and he'd be all right.

At least someone really cares about him. Nancy fills his void, gives him love, and he's happy. 

But he made a mistake. He slept with her, and he feels like he's rushing her somehow. Sure, it was nice, but Steve wants her to feel okay.

She liked it.

Oh, she's perfect.

He'd marry her if he could.

Then, of course, Steve Fucking Harrington had to fuck up. He wants her to understand that if his father learns about the alcohol, he'd show up to class with a black eye and blood on his shirt.

He can't tell her.

Nobody can know.

She doesn't understand and she leaves, and he watches her go. Inwardly, he pounds his fists on the side of the wall and he screams.

Steve decides to be the bigger person and he goes to see her to say he's sorry. Because it kills him that Nancy's sad, and as much as he and Barb may not agree, he hopes she's okay. Steve's a nice guy like that.

She tells hims he can't, but it's all right. They've got time.

She's in her room with Jonathan Byers.

Jonathan Fucking Byers.

He's had enough. All the pain, the anger, the rage, the sadness and anxiety explodes, and he stumbles back into the car, blind.

"Your little girlfriend cheat on you?" Carol mocks, and Steve turns around and slaps her.

Tommy gets angry at that, but some sort of mad gleam in his eyes makes him back down.

Steve Harrington isn't good with anger.

_Nancy The Slut Wheeler._

Serves him right.

So now he's tumbling around with Jonathan Byers, screaming, and he doesn't realize it but tears are raining from his eyes, and he learns later he's screaming _howFUCKINGdareyou_ , but police arrive and he runs away. Let Nancy take care of her new boyfriend.

Tommy's a fucking asshole. He and Carol. God, how did he get to being such an ass, hanging out with fellow jerks?

Steve decides, right then and there, life is going to be different, so he cleans his awful writing from the theater. He refuses to allow them to pay him, instead driving off to see Jonathan. To apologize. Because really, now that he thinks about it, it's not Jonathan's fault. It's not really Nancy's fault either.

"Jonathan? It's me, man, it's Steve. I just want to talk." He wants to tell someone, anyone, about everything he hates about himself.

Nancy opens the door. She's bleeding, and all he can think is that Jonathan did something to her, but instead he finds them standing in horror as some creature climbs out of the wall. At first opportunity, he gets the hell out of there.

Inside, the lights are flashing again, and he's fumbling with his keys when he looks up.

The bat lies abandoned on the floor, and he runs in, grabs it, and swings, smashing it against the creature's stomach.

Nancy gives him a glowing look, and he grins. "Uh, hi, Nance," he says.

She hugs him, and Jonathan claps him on the back. They're all good now. He and Jonathan turn out to have similar music tastes, which is cool. For Christmas, Steve gives him a new camera. To make up for the one he broke.

For a while, life goes back to being perfect for Steve. Nancy loves him, and he and Jonathan Byers are okay now. Who would have thought? But now there's another dickhead, King Billy.

Well, you win some you lose some.

But it turns out Nancy doesn't love him.

She was drunk, he tells himself, but drunk words are sober thoughts, and he staggers out the house, running blindly into the woods, where he cries before he goes home.

She can't bring herself to say she loves him. Fine. He doesn't need her anyway.

Steve decides that he'll try one more time, but she's not home. Instead he finds a fourteen-year-old with a trucker cap and a mess of curly hair (someone really needs to teach that kid a thing or two about hair styling). 

"Still got your bat?" he asks.

"What bat?"

"The one with the nails," Dustin says as if it were obvious, getting into the car.

The two of them are driving, and Dustin tells him all about how he adopted a slug that grew into a tiny demogorgon.

"How do you know it wasn't a lizard?" Steve says, praying that it's not another monster.

"Because its face opened up and it ate my cat."

Well, shit.

Steve opens the door, and finds that somehow it burrowed through the ground, shedding its skin. And a shiver runs down his spine.

They're walking along the tracks, and Dustin says that he kept "Dart" in the hopes of impressing some girl, and Steve suddenly feels a pang. No, no, this can't be happening, not to someone so young so soon.

"Act like you don't care," he tells him, because he might as well help. Then, he shares his hair care secrets.

They're barricading a bus, and the redheaded girl (Dustin's crush, it seems) shows up with Lucas Sinclair.

"Hey! Dickheads! How come the only one helping me out is this random girl?"

That's how Steve Harrington finds himself crouched inside an abandoned bus with three middle schoolers.

Suddenly, there's a screech, and Steve decides to take matters into his own hands. Swing, crunch, squeal. Simple. He makes sure never to miss.

He gets back in the bus, and they're screaming, and they're all gonna die and it'll be his fault, when suddenly they all just leave.

They decide to follow them.

"Steve?"

"Nancy?"

This sucks.

They're cleaning out the garage now.

"I may be a pretty shitty boyfriend, but it turns out I'm a damn good babysitter."

"Steve..." she says, but he already knows what she did.

"It's okay, Nance," he says. And it really, really isn't, but he'll learn to live with it.

Some girl who Mike seems to know shows up, and it really is sweet how much Mike and this "El" seem to know each other. Steve feels a little sad that he can't have a relationship like that.

"I never gave up on you," Mike is saying, and he sort of wants to cry right then.

Now, he's left watching over the little shits.

Oh, wait, they're talking about setting things on fire? Nope. Too dangerous for kids. They've already had enough danger for today.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey! It's not happening," he says, putting his hands on his hips. Jesus, he sounds like a parent, but he really doesn't care.

"It is my job to keep you little shitheads safe, and that is exactly what I plan to do."

And then, Billy Hargrove had to show up.

Dammit. Nothing's really working out for them. Steve's heard the rumors about how he and Billy are somehow in a relationship, and nothing could be further from the truth. Especially not when Billy threatens Lucas.

Not okay.

Ever.

And he's being pummeled, and all he can really think is _Well, today can't get any worse,_ and then he wakes up in a car with Max driving.

If demodogs don't kill him, this will.

So now they're walking around a creepy, gross-smelling tunnel, and they set some vines or something ablaze. And there are even more demodogs now, but it turns out one of them is Dart. Dustin feeds him candy, and Dart flicks his head at them as if to say _Go on, hurry it up._

The demodogs run right past them.

Steve wants to be relieved, but he's not. The Chief and that El girl are in danger now.

Dustin seems to be turning inside himself, now, and Steve doesn't know why. That "what an idiot" comment from Max certainly doesn't help. And as much as he's fond of Max, he can't help but resent her slightly by the way she's treating Dustin.

He won't admit it, but Dustin's his favorite. Obviously.

It's the Snow Ball, and Steve thinks Dustin looks pretty cool, if he does say so himself.

But afterward, he finds Dustin standing alone in the parking lot.

"Hey," he says, rolling up. "How'd it go."

"Okay," Dustin says. "Nancy was nice."

Of course she was, and Steve smiles wryly and they pull away.

But Dustin gets steadily quieter and unhappy as Max and Lucas start obviously dating. He rarely seems to smile that much anymore.

They go out for burgers, and as Dustin is reaching for the ketchup he sees a few thin red lines on Dustin's arm.

"What the hell is that?" he demands, and after trying to play it off, Dustin starts to cry.

Steve gets it. Max ran off with Lucas, and Nancy ran off with Jonathan.

So they eat their food and they tell each other about their problems, and Steve tells Dustin all about his parents.

But Dustin doesn't seem like he feels all that better, and so Steve goes to see Nancy.

"Steve?"

"Hey, Nance," he says, grinning. "Uh, hey, I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

Dustin recovers from being sick and shows up at school looking surprised. Steve smiles to himself, and decides to thank Nancy for hanging out with the little shit later.

Eventually, Dustin slowly gets over his crush when a new girl waltzes into his life. Steve at first is suspicious, because she wears clothes with pictures of things like bloody skulls and her hair is blue and she seems to like to tease him, and he doesn't know if she'll be a good influence on him.

Then, Dustin is telling Steve all about how Emma cussed out a Craig Meacham for pushing Dustin into a bush, and he allows himself to relax. He drives Dustin and the girl to Mike's, trying not to smirk at them in the mirror. Emma flirts rather obviously with him, and Dustin's face is a funny red color.

Max and Dustin become friends, just friends, and he's happy for them. He meets Will, who he likes because he's _quiet_ unlike the rest of them, and he meets El officially. She's good to Mike, which he appreciates.

Will's been crushing on a popular girl in his grade, and Steve cringes because he knows what those girls are like, but when Will shows up to Mike's one day with a pretty blond girl, all blushes and nervous energy, he can't help but clap the smaller boy on the back. Which is how Steve and Will start bonding. Plus, Will's actually _quiet._

El he bonds with because she's damn cool. Dustin's gotten him into comics and things like Star Wars, and she's pretty close to a Jean Grey or a Luke Skywalker, which is pretty awesome. He tells her than one day, and all she says is "thank you," bus she smiles at him and pats his wrist before going to join Mike with a bowl of popcorn.

Max and Lucas, Mike and Eleven, Dustin and Emma, Will and Jennifer. The party sure has gotten big.

Meet Steve Harrington, the best-looking boy in Hawkins.

Steve's desires are simple: make the Party proud. And he wants love.

He may not have a girl yet, but he's got a crowd of kids who look up to him.

And that's just fine for him.


End file.
